With the rapid growth of K webtoons and web novels, competition between Naver and Kakao is expected to intensify.
According to industry estimates on the 20th, Naver is winning the top spot. According to the Mirae Asset Daewoo report, the global annual transaction value of Naver Webtoon is estimated at 800 billion won and Kakao Page is 500 billion won. In terms of corporate value, Naver Webtoon is leading with 7.5 trillion won and 3,400 trillion won for Kakao Page.
An official from Naver Webtoon said, “Currently, MAU is based on 72 million users at home and abroad,” and “We are expected to achieve the global annual transaction amount of 800 billion by smoothly achieving the goals set so far.”
An official from Kakao Page said, “The MAU number is not disclosed, but it is more than 3 billion won based on the combined daily transaction amount at home and abroad.” .
▲ Representative image of Lower Olympus. Naver Webtoon’Lower Olympus’, created by Chelsea Mice in North America, is currently being serviced in Naver Webtoon Korea. (Photo provided by Naver Webtoon)
Naver Webtoon said in the 2019’Global Achievements and Directions Theme Meetup’, “Naver Webtoon’s main cash cows are in the Korean and Japanese markets, and the US is expected to take responsibility in the next five years. It will drive the people.”
Accordingly, in May 2020, Naver integrated companies that were divided into Korea (Naver Webtoon), US (Webtoon Entertainment), and Japan (Line Digital Frontier) into US Webtoon Entertainment. US Webtoon Entertainment is the headquarters of Naver Webtoon. The source of confidence was the achievement of 10 million monthly unique visitors (MAU) in the North American market, and an annual average growth of 71% for two years of MAU of Line Webtoon in the United States. Naver Webtoon supports English, Chinese (simplified/traditional), Thai, Indonesian, Spanish, and French, and provides webtoon services to more than 100 countries.
▲ Kakao Page’s webtoon’I Only Level Up’. Kakao Page’s Japanese platform Piccoma has achieved remarkable results. ((Photo provided = Kakao page))
Kakao Page is also competing with Naver by entering the global market. Kakao Page is expanding overseas by supplying webtoons to platforms such as Tencent (China), Piccoma (Japan), Tapas (USA), and Neo Bazaar (Southeast Asia). It substantially overlaps with the entry point of Naver Webtoon.
In particular, competition for occupying the US market is fierce. After Naver Webtoon relocated its headquarters to the US in May 2020, Kakao Page began supplying IP to Tapas Media, a webtoon platform in North America, from July. In November, it became the largest shareholder of Tapas Media and incorporated Kakao Page as an overseas affiliate.
At the time, Park Jong-cheol, head of Kakao Page’s platform business, said, “North America is the world’s second-largest comic book market with a value of about $9.3 billion (1.3 trillion won), and is a very important market for Kakao Page’s mid- to long-term global strategy.
This is why Naver’s acquisition of Wattpad is predicted as a trailer for a new competition. Naver has acquired 90 million users in North America and Europe through the acquisition of Whatpad, the world’s largest web novel platform.
A Naver official said, “We see having a creation ecosystem as an important point,” and explained, “It is a system in which amateur writers with diversity are first verified by readers, rather than entering (global) with only existing works.”
An official from Kakao Page said, “We plan to expand the life cycle of the work through secondary creations through the use of IP, and take a strategy that allows consumers to experience one IP from multiple angles.”